Stream It Or Skip It?

Rarely do “they” make “’em” like The Naked Gun (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) these days. The joke-a-second spoof genre has long been withering on the vine, with the very funny The Blackening being the only notable example in the post-Scary Movie franchise world. Of course, cynics will point out that the new Naked Gun wouldn’t exist if we weren’t nosehairs-deep in reboot/remake/legacy sequel culture, filmmaker Akiva Schaffer (Popstar, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers) and producer Seth McFarlane (creator of Ted and Family Guy) picking up the franchise helm after the OG Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker films bottomed out after three movies, more than three decades ago. So out is Leslie Nielsen (because he died) and in is Liam Neeson (because his name is shockingly similar?) as the lead of a refreshed probably-franchise, after this one proved profitable with a $100 million worldwide theatrical take. Going to the theater to laugh your ass off ain’t dead – but we’re here to determine just how much of your ass you’ll laugh off while watching this so-stupid-it’s-all-caps-GREAT revival.

The Gist: We open in medias res, because this movie is just begging to be compared to Shakespeare: A bank robbery is in progress, but intrepid crimebuster cop and probable sociopath Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson) is on the scene to pound the piss out of the bad guys. He makes quick work of ’em, but he misses the one who plundered a safe-deposit box and got away with the P.L.O.T. Device. No, really, it says that right on the actual thing. That’s a joke. Laugh, you fools! If you don’t, they might not make any more of these amazingly stupid hilarious things. 

The plot coagulates as Drebin strolls through about three-to-four-dozen sight gags just in the second set piece, the vast majority being coffee gags. He’s very much the superstar of special L.A. cop unit Police Squad, just like his father before him, which you’ve hopefully deduced by now was Frank Drebin Sr., played by Leslie Nielsen in the original movies. There are things you need to know about this fresh Drebin: His partner is Capt. Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser), his boss is Chief Davis (official Best Name in Showbiz winner 27 years running, CCH Pounder), he’s a widower in a self-described “cop apartment” complete with stray empty Chinese-food takeout boxes everywhere, and he likes chili dogs so much the movie grinds to an absolute halt to make like 10 jokes about it, including a bit where he eats so many of them he nearly shits himself.

Anyway, a guy dies in a curious car crash, in an ugly and janky electric vehicle made by tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston), whose corporate slogan is “We make impossible solutions for a doomed world,” and who we quickly learn is the man with the P.L.O.T. Device, a wonderfully submoronic joke that I honestly can’t get enough of. The death is suspish, and brings the dead guy’s grieving sister Beth Davenport (Pamela Andeson) into Drebin’s office to participate in pinheaded gags that we truly care about, and further advance the plot, which we truly do not care about. They investigate, Beth taking on the undercover name Ms. Cherry Roosevelt Fatbozochowingspaghetti (don’t ask, just spit-take your Zero Sugar RC Cola all over the wall), and they also fall in love. Will they get to the bottom of Cane’s diabolical scheme for world domination? Really, who gives a crap, as long as this movie keeps us looking at each other and shaking our heads at comedy so puerile, it makes us forget that the world outside is going straight to heck. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Well, this Naked Gun makes pointed references to Mission: Impossible and, um, Jack Frost? And consider it a reminder to rewatch Airplane! and The Kentucky Fried Movie.

Performance Worth Watching: Both leads toy with the offscreen personae in a manner that’s perfectly winking and never overstated. It’s not much of a surprise to see Neeson fully committed to playing the buffoon; he really goes for it, and we love him for it. It’s also not shocking to learn that Anderson has snappy comic timing; just like we always knew she had the charisma and chops for a dramatic role like The Last Showgirl, we also kinda knew she was capable of being effortlessly funny.

Memorable Dialogue: (Disgusting splat noise as a dirty Kleenex hits the bottom of a trash can)

Sex and Skin: Do infantile pantomime gags involving turkey basters and a dog count?

Our Take: The Naked Gun had me with the trailer’s slashy OJ Simpson joke, and yes, I’m aware of my phrasing here. If the rest of the movie was even half as funny half the time, we’d be in good shape, and it surpasses that with about a two-to-one joke-hit ratio. Considering the sheer volume of jokes – there’s at least one in nearly every frame – that’s a lot of laughs, as long as you’re tuned to the franchise’s brand of cartoonish exaggeration, detective-noir parody and utterly shamelessly ancient gags culled from vaudeville and Mel Brooks comedies. And by “ancient” I mean “classic” and “timeless,” of course. 

Co-writing with frequent collaborators Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, Schaffer explores a wide breadth of comedy styles: Slapstick, homage, spoof, wordplay, gastrointestinal, visual gags in the background and corners of the frame, a montage interlude that functions as an Up-like short-film-within-the-feature-film love story that takes a yeah-sure-why-not turn toward the occult and draws heavily upon the SNL works of Schaffer’s claim to fame comedy trio, The Lonely Island. So it’s not all ancient, and wisely appeals to audiences too young to properly contextualize Neeson’s Oskar Schindler thespianism, Anderson as a hot-button tabloid sex symbol or the exacting specificity of that Tivo joke.

I feel the need to clarify the ancient/timeless descriptors as being tonal, not necessarily substantive, which is how Schaffer and his wildly inspired and game cast sell the material not as moldy nostalgia, but polished-up variations of old gems. The prime example is the villain, who once might’ve been an organized-crime boss, but is now the updated archetype, which we might as well call The Elon. But that’s where this Naked Gun turns off the cruise control and exits the political-comedy expressway. Everything’s a metaphor now, with horror films mucking about in psychotrauma quicksand and action films functioning as Covid allegories and all that increasingly wearisome art that my cricket peers and I inevitably endow with praise. The latest chapter of The Naked Gun saga deserves similar accolades for not being About Things. It is deeply stupid and unapologetically silly and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Our Call: The Naked Gun Two Thousand ‘n Five gets 25 chili dogs out of a possible 25 chili dogs for lunch. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.